Decision sets precedent for chip maker that charges a royalty on nearly every smartphone made

One Saturday night in February, Qualcomm Inc. arranged for documents to be slipped under the doors of a select group of guests at the New Orleans Hyatt Regency. The spiral-bound folders, according to one recipient, contained articles aimed at swaying an influential industry group in a hard-fought debate over technology patents.

The chip maker’s last-ditch maneuver, the culmination of a lobbying campaign that included ads, op-eds and a website, failed. Directors of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, which...